New York Times beats profit and revenue expectations, raises dividend

New York Times Co.
NYT, +1.37%
reported a fourth-quarter adjusted profit and revenue that beat expectations and raised its dividend by 25%, helped by the biggest gain in new digital subscribers in about two years. The stock was still inactive in premarket trade. The media company swung to net income of $55.2 million, or 33 cents a share, from a loss of $56.8 million, or 35 cents a share, in the same period a year ago, which included a pension settlement charge of $102.1 million. Excluding non-recurring items, adjusted earnings per share came to 32 cents, above the FactSet consensus of 27 cents. Total revenue rose 3.8% to $502.7 million, above the FactSet consensus of $479.4 million, as subscription revenue fell 2.2% to $263.6 million but advertising revenue grew 5.0% to 191.7 million. The company added 265,000 net new digital subscribers during the quarter, the biggest increase since the months immediately following the 2016 election. Separately, the company raised its quarterly dividend to 5 cents a share from 4 cents, payable April 18 to shareholders of record on April 3. The stock has slipped 0.1% over the past three months while the S&P 500
SPX, +0.60%
has lost 0.6%.

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